If you're the kind of person that enjoys stories over glitz and glamour then this film may be of interest to you. Whilst travelling in the English Countryside American couple Maggie and Pete are driven off the road but collected by English squire Jason Mount Olive. Jason puts them up in his country mansion and soon his guests arrive. Once there the film becomes an Agatha Christie inspired work, the guests start dying. Some creepy moments, Pete's shower scene is rather nasty, imagine being locked in a boiling hot shower room, and Clive's choking is also an uncomfortable viewing. As in all horrors the more possible the scare, the worse it is. Kiki Dee provides the opening music, 'The other side of me,' beautifully sang. The movie cost an estimated $2.5m to make, and grossed $11.3 at the Box Office. A few silly moments , but worth a late night viewing nevertheless.

Katharine Ross & Sam Elliott play Margaret Walsh and Pete Danner, a young couple who become involved with a mysterious man, who invites them, along with five others, to his country estate, where one of them will inherit his "legacy", all the while being watched by his mysterious servants, who seem overly close to the master of the house, and when, one by one, the guests start dying in brutal and bizarre ways, does Maggie begin to learn the sinister truth, one that she feels destined to uncover...Ho-Hum thriller is strongly derivative of other similar films like "The Omen", "Rosemary's Baby", "The Exorcist", etc. but with far less successful results. Nicely filmed on location, but that's all in this mostly tepid and unsatisfying film.

American Interior decorator Katharine Ross and architect boyfriend Sam Elliott are commissioned for a job in England. While touring the beautiful English countryside, they are in a traffic accident with a limo containing filthy rich John Standing, who insists that the banged up couple experience his hospitality at his grand manor while their motorcycle is being repaired. Once there, the two are joined by an array of flamboyant guests, who all seem to owe some kind of allegiance to Standing, who Ross is puzzled to hear mentioned is bedridden and at death's door. Apparently called forth to receive some kind of death bed bequests, the guests die grisly deaths one by one, as attempts to escape from the manor grounds are frustrated at every turn.Released back in the late 1970s, The Legacy was a modest box office success despite some rather lackluster reviews, but few people seemingly remember it. It is hard to understand any ill will towards it. The story is a twist on Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None with some supernatural elements added to good effect. This story has been used often throughout cinema history for good reason - because it is effective and solid. The death scenes are memorably grisly without the stomach-turning pretensions of the modern day torture porn proliferating the screen since the success of Saw.Director Richard Marquand has a decent command of atmosphere and his actors, and captures the beautiful English countryside in all its glory. The film moves along at a brisk clip. He establishes a respectable modicum of tension and provides enough of a showcase for some of the suspense sequences to wrap the viewer up in the story. The sequences with the woman trapped beneath the surface of a pool and a wayward fireplace log that causes a rather shocking demise are suitably memorable. I also like the sequence where Ross and Elliott launch an escape attempt only to find every single road leading them in circles back to the mansion.The cast is strong and appealing. English veterans like Standing, Charles Gray, and Hildegarde Neil are well cast. As is Margaret Tyzack as an enigmatic caregiver who seems to have some sort of symbiotic relationship with the manor's sinister cat. Roger Daltrey is on hand in an attention-getting glorified cameo as one of the ill-fated guests.Ross and Elliott are both immensely appealing and sympathetic as the trapped fish-out-of-water Americans. Ross does a credible job of rendering her character's mounting panic palpable, which she moves nicely to frustration and then ultimately acceptance of the predicament. Elliott is really not an essential character plot-wise, but he shares tremendous chemistry with Ross and provides a note of likable stability among the more eccentric house guests. Plus one is never quite sure where he will ultimately fit in the final denouement.If any real criticisms can be leveled at the film, it would be predictability. It is not really a shock who the last person standing is and it is something we have suspected all along - indeed the film does not do much to keep it a secret. Yet to say that this robs the film of suspense would be erroneous as the viewing journey to get from point A to B is largely entertaining. By contrast, I think this traditional (albeit predictable) rendering of the material is far more suspenseful and enjoyable then the more recent modern rendering found in Identity, where an overly ambitious mid-plot twist finds the suspense petering out like a deflating tire.I would heartily recommend this to fans of thrillers, mysteries or genre films without any compunction. Ironically, I have found that older viewers seem to have a higher appreciation of it than younger ones, perhaps due to its more traditional trappings.

This movie doesn't seem to compare to the horror movies of today but I remember really liking this film when it came out. It may have been considered much better back when the film was released. I had read the book first when it came out before seeing the film and thought it was fantastic. I found it to be a great story and played very well in my mind. Though most seem to have a complaint about the special effects/ cheesiness of the film. I think they fair well in the time frame that the movie was made, plus to this day the swimming pool scene still gives me a chill. If the special effects don't work for you try reading the book and see if your imagination doesn't bring this story to life for you. I gave it an 7 because I felt it was a good solid movie and that is what I would have rated it back in 1978.